By Jeff Brumley
Bob Ballance said he’s expecting the question from all quarters: why is he leaving his Colorado church popular with Millennials for one that’s more traditional in a small Virginia town?
And he admits there will be some adjusting to do as he transitions from Pine Street Church, an American Baptist Churches congregation in Boulder, to First Baptist Church, a congregation in South Boston, Va., affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
For starters, the church he’s leaving features an eclectic worship style and doesn’t have a pulpit. First Baptist most certainly does. And Ballance said his laid-back church wardrobe will need some beefing up before he shows up at his new job on Nov. 15.
“I had to go buy some ties,” he said. “And a suit.”
‘A soft place in our hearts’
But Ballance says his isn’t a story about comparing two states, cities or churches. He didn’t accept the call to First Baptist, South Boston, because there is anything wrong with Pine Street, which has made headlines for its innovative ministries that attract young adults.
And he certainly isn’t going to be a fish out of water in South Boston, which is located just north of the Virginia-North Carolina state line. Balance knows all about small towns: He was raised in Shawboro, N.C., a small farming crossroads town in the northeastern part of the state.
“We have a soft place in our hearts for small churches and smaller towns,” Ballance said about himself and his wife, Catherine.
Even more, Ballance said the region of North Carolina where he grew up has a lot in common with South Boston.
“So I’m returning to my roots,” he said.
‘Breathed new life’
But there’s much more to it than that, said Tommy Nelson, a member of First Baptist and of the search committee that selected Ballance.
“The story runs even deeper,” Nelson said.
It starts with the fact that 175 résumés were received to fill the position vacated about a year ago with the retirement of the previous pastor.
One of the strong draws for the committee was Ballance’s record of helping churches get onto a healthy track in terms of membership growth, Nelson said.
“We are not unlike a lot of churches,” Nelson said. “We have seen older members die off without an awful lot of new and younger members coming into our congregation.”
Some young families have joined the church, but not at the numbers needed to be sustainable.
“We expect Bob to help us grow” those numbers, he said. “In addition to his leadership, we are willing to put our energy into that effort as well.”
The church also sees Ballance as a senior pastor capable of leading them through initiatives designed to help it become a more missions-minded congregation “and to lead us into doing things somewhat differently than in the past,” he said.
Nelson said the church is so eager for Ballance to start that members have volunteered to fly to Colorado to help the family pack and drive moving trucks to Virginia.
“He has already breathed new life into the congregation,” he said.
Need to draw Millennials
Ballance said those challenges facing First Baptist are just the kind of challenges he feels called to address in his ministry.
Attracting young people to church is an especially uphill struggle in Boulder, a city where outdoors activities trump church attendance and membership, he said.
The more church-minded culture of Virginia and especially of South Boston will make that a little easier, he said. But getting Millennials to buy in is difficult wherever a church is.
“If [First Baptist] doesn’t attract Millennials, like all other churches, it isn’t going to be around very long,” he said.
And Ballance said it’s his style to come into a new town and reach out immediately to local government, including schools, law enforcement and emergency services, to determine the needs of the community.
“I think a small-town church can have a lot more influence” in its community than churches in large cities can, he said.